The Ocean City Town Council is tired of kicking the can down the road when it comes to the problems caused by some of the town's major car events.

During a Monday night meeting, the mayor and council members were presented a list of seven recommendations from the town's four-member Police Commission that could be potential solutions to some of the problems.

The meeting came on the tail of public outcry over the behavior that took place during some of the resort town's events in the last few months, which sparked discussions about how to deter future activities.

Members of the public showed up in force, with barely an open seat in the room, as the council heard the recommendations, which included sending a letter to the H2O International car show promoter requesting the event be relocated, discontinuing Boardwalk parades during Cruisin' events and discontinuing the rental of the Roland E. Powell Convention Center and Inlet Parking Lot for Cruisin' events.

"The vision is that Ocean City is a safe, clean and green family resort, featuring a world-class beach, Boardwalk and healthy community for residents and guests," said council member Dennis Dare, who serves on the Police Commission. "That has to be our vision tonight as well as we review these.”

However, council member John Gehrig was vocal about encouraging an initiative that wasn't in those recommendations, one he said first came out of a strategic planning session — creating a task force that would put officials, residents, business owners and event promoters in the same room to start a dialogue.

"What the residents, the businesses, what we need to understand is there is no switch. There is no switch. We don't make a decision, flip the switch, light's out, party's over, they're all gone. That doesn't happen," he said. "It's good for everyone up here politically to say, 'We did it. Look what we did.' But that's disingenuous to everyone."

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H2Oi enthusiast gathered at 141st street in Ocean City to show off their cars and meet on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017.(Photo11: Staff Photo by Megan Raymond)

He cautioned against taking any action that would essentially bring an end to the town's Cruisin' events, which he said won't solve the financial and safety concerns that have been raised.

The council ultimately voted to defer the Commission's recommendations for further consideration during a future work session and to allow the mayor to appoint a task force, which will include stakeholders on all sides of the issue.

"Now, we need to look at it as far as the council goes and further just break these items down one by one, see what's feasible, what we can do out of these items and move forward," council president Lloyd Martin said.

The motion to create the task force was made by council member Matt James, who said he believes it's the best route to take moving forward.

"I would just hate to see us getting rid of the Cruisin' events and then them turn into something like H2Oi," he said. "That event was always unsanctioned, and then it was cancelled and it was the worst it’s ever been.”

Motor events rating matrix

The Commission, as part of its recommendations, also presented the creation of a "motor events rating matrix," which scored each of the town's six major car events in nine categories, with one being a good rating and five being bad.

H2Oi and the fall and spring Cruisin' events received the worst ratings, with a four or higher in behavior of non-event attendees, behavior of roadside crowds, level of law enforcement required, desired demographics, requires backfill business, adverse social media impact and pedestrian endangerment.

Dare said the chart explains how the Commission reached many of its decisions about making the recommendations during an Oct. 13 closed session.

"Highlighted in yellow are the three events that were clearly above and beyond the other motor events that did have bad scorings," he said.

On Tuesday, Cruisin' car show producer Bob Rothermel, who attended the council meeting, said the event's organizers were surprised by the recommendations, but volunteered to participate in the task force.

“I thought the recommendations were more drastic than what they need to be because we’re trying to look for remedies for a small section of the people who come to Ocean City that weekend, not necessarily the people who are participants for the show," he said.

In terms of solutions, he said Cruisin' event organizers have long advocated for creating a special event zone where fines might be increased for offenders and impounding cars that are breaking the law.

Rothermel described the potential financial impact on Ocean City businesses of implementing some of the Commission's recommendations for the Cruisin' events as "draconian."

He said the feedback from the business community has been that the spring Cruisin' event in particular is very beneficial for the town.

“We’ve been able to create a second Memorial Day if you will in the month of May,” Rothermel said.

During public comments, Stephen Carullo, owner of Dead Freddies and the Lazy Lizard, emphasized the importance of remembering how heavily business owners rely on the money these events bring into Ocean City.

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H2Oi enthusiast gathered at 141st street in Ocean City to show off their cars and meet on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017.(Photo11: Staff Photo by Megan Raymond)

He said he believes there are viable solutions out there and finding replacement events may be part of the answer, but until other options are in place, businesses need the income that comes along with these major motor vehicle events.

"The rest of the season is slowing down, not getting busier, so those weeks are what’s keeping the businesses floating and giving them the Memorial Days, which the Memorial Day numbers are dropping and the Labor Day numbers are dropping," he said.

Joe Groves, president of the Delmarva Condominium Manager's Association, said he rented out properties to several H2Oi attendees this year and had the opportunity to talk with a group of about 16 of them.

He said many of them came, despite the fact the event was canceled, to make a point that the drivers were upset. Everybody should be part of the solution, including attendees and promoters, Groves said, and it can be that way.

"It’s not that hard to fix this," he said. "It’s not easy, but it’s not hard. I think that the attitude from everybody should be to fix."

In a resort town, he said it's a given that business owners want people to come. But right now, he said, the perception among many attendees of these annual events is that they are no longer wanted.

Susan Jones, director of the Ocean City Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association, warned that Cruisin' is sometimes bigger than Memorial Day and almost bigger than July 4 for some of the local businesses.

"I’ve had calls all day long today from hotels who are saying, ‘What’s going on? We are getting calls left and right from our Cruisin’ guests and they are saying they are going to cancel because they don’t think Ocean City wants them,' " she said.

A troublesome season

Though H2Oi was officially canceled this year by the event's promoter two weeks before its scheduled start, drivers looking to showcase heavily modified Audis and Volkswagens still showed up to the resort town in droves Sept. 28 through Oct. 1.

Officials described the behavior of that weekend's visitors as "appalling," with law enforcement responding to more than 2,700 calls for service and making 1,263 traffic stops throughout the four days.

That weekend saw two law enforcement officers struck by a car driven by an 18-year-old man from Seaford who was tryng to evade arrest and a 26-year-old pedestrian from Connecticut struck by an Ocean City police marked patrol car making a left turn.

During the incident in which two officers were struck by a car, two Ocean City officers also fired shots at the driver just before he fled the scene. No one was injured in the shooting, but it is being investigated by the Maryland State Police Homicide Unit.

A video of at least one Ocean City officer striking a suspect as he was being arrested during the unofficial H2Oi gathering also made the rounds on social media in the wake of the weekend's activity.

The police department's internal affairs unit reviewed the video shortly after it was posted and officers' accounts of the arrest, and ruled the actions were within the department's training and policies.

During this year's Endless Summer Cruisin' event, which took place Oct. 5-8, Ocean City saw at least two major pedestrian accidents.

The first occurred on Oct. 6, when a state trooper from the Princess Anne Barrack assigned to road patrol struck a 57-year-old Ocean City man who, for unknown reasons, police said darted in front of the trooper's marked patrol car. He was taken to Atlantic General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The second accident occurred early on Oct. 8, when police say a car that had a green light on Coastal Highway struck a pedestrian in his 20s near the intersection for 54th Street. The man was flown by state police helicopter to Peninsula Regional Medical Center where he was treated for his injuries.

In 2016, Ocean City Cruisin', the event's spring iteration, saw two tragedies — the death of a Germantown man whose motorcycle slammed into a pickup truck and the death of a Pennsylvania man who fell from a hotel balcony.

In 2015, a Millersville man faced six traffic violations after he was caught on video performing doughnuts in the middle of the highway during a Cruisin' event.